Monday, October 20, 2008

$100k Guaranteed.

I played at this great tournament in Macau this past Saturday... It was a HK$100k guaranteed, and the field was well covered. 56 players showed up for a total pot size of $126,000. I did pretty well and got 3rd place, cashing HK$25000. Not bad, not bad. But a much better highlight of the game isn't the placing, rather it's the fact that I had Huck Seed sitting to my right thru the final table! Yes people, Huck Seed, the 1996 WSOP Main Event Champion. It's a good experience playing with one of the best, and it's definitely amazing meeting a world champ!

So that's that for now, I'll write more later when I regain my energy... I need some sleep! But I'm pretty happy, this is a good outing before APPT!

UPDATED: I've been asked to write about memorable hands during the game so here's one.... and for those reading who're struggling in late stages of their tournaments, this might be a fix:

This is 6-handed aka bubble time (as tournament paid top 5), and blinds are 2000/4000. I was 2nd in chips in the big blind with 60000. 4th in chips, with 35000, raised it up to 10000. Sitting next was our 3rd in chips, he had 50000, and he just called. Next up was our focus of the table, aka the short stack. He's got just 6000 chips, and he folded. Action was to me and I stared down at 77. I said to myself, I have no way of pushing both of the raiser and the caller out without risking my whole stack, and I didn't want to gamble with shortie almost blinded out. So I folded my 77, and we go to the flop.

Flop: 2x 7x Jx

D'oh. I just folded middle set! This is insane! This would be my chance to take 2 people out in one hand or at least cripple them. Oh well, I still have my stack. Let's see what happens. Original raiser bet out in a sort of continuation way, punching another 12000 into the pot. The original caller, decided to raise it up. He made it 28000 to go. It's a cheap raise in terms of pot odds, but if you look at stack sizes, it's either this much or all-in. Raiser decided to fold his probably complete miss. And now, *drumroll pls....* Caller showed JJ! That's a big HOLY CRAP from me! It would've been set over set if I had played my 77 and although he couldn't knock me out, I would be stripped down to 10000 chips!

Lesson here is, it's generally correct to NOT play those mid to low pairs down the late stretch of a tournament, as these hands are hardly dominating favorites. They're usually coin flip (with a slight lead) hands.The diminishing utility of chips says the chips you can potentially gain aren't nearly as valuable as the chips that you can potentially lose, in a coin flip. A lot of us find ourselves busting out of tournament in late stages on "hands that were preflop favorites", and we tend to say to ourselves "if only that guy could miss, I could be the table leader". Don't be that guy. Revisit your small-ball mentality and make jabs at stealing pots with minimal risk. Avoid the big coin flip showdown. This could be the very last weapon you need in your arsenal in order to take your game from a "close one" to a cash.